Mansfield Town

Caretaker boss reflects on win in tough conditions at Concord Rangers.

Caretaker boss Adam Murray was delighted that our team dug deep to overcome Concord Rangers in last night’s FA Cup First Round replay.

In tough conditions at the Vanarama South club’s tiny Aspect Arena, both sides had chances to go ahead, before Ollie Palmer tapped home from Rob Taylor’s cross for the game’s only goal, just after the hour mark.

“We’re absolutely over the moon [to get the win],” said Murray. “We knew what kind of game it was going to be, the atmosphere that was going to be created, the slope of the pitch and the surroundings and we had to make sure the boys were ready for that.

“We got a little bit tied up in the two styles that we’ve been playing, which if I’m being honest, knew was going to happen at some point. As I said on Saturday, there’s been a lot of information [given to the players] and in the first half, we got caught between the two styles and were causing ourselves problems.

He continued: “The pitch affected the way we wanted to go about things. People obviously saw the way we want to go about things on Saturday now, but it’s not an excuse and some of our decision making in the first half wasn’t good enough.

“Our game-management wasn’t good as effective as it ought to have been, but I think again, at times we saw the product that we’re trying to get. We’re trying to move the ball quickly and get it out to the wide boys and cause trouble and if we’d been a bit more ruthless in the final third, we could have won by a greater score.

“We tweaked things at half-time and gave the boys a little bit of guidance on how we were going to win this game. Fair play to the boys, they gave everything in the second half and I’m really proud of them.”

Murray also complimented first team coaches Micky Moore and Richard Cooper for the part they played in last night’s victory.

“I’m not going to take all the credit for the half-time changes,” added the 33-year-old. “Micky and ‘Coops’ behind me have been superb. We had to make the changes and the lads had to carry things out, so they deserve all the credit.”

Following the victory, our team will travel to the R Costings Abbey Stadium to meet Cambridge United in the second round on Saturday 06 December (3.00pm).